


The Second Stage of Grief Is Anger

by cuddlesome



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Love Never Dies - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Crying, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Mild Blood, Multi, Post-Canon, Revenge, Spoilers, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23888059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuddlesome/pseuds/cuddlesome
Summary: Raoul isn't coping well with his wife's death.
Relationships: Christine Daaé/Erik | Phantom of the Opera, Raoul de Chagny & Erik | Phantom of the Opera, Raoul de Chagny/Christine Daaé, Raoul de Chagny/Erik | Phantom of the Opera
Comments: 12
Kudos: 47





	The Second Stage of Grief Is Anger

**Author's Note:**

> In honor of LND streaming recently I thought I'd post this thing. I have extremely mixed feelings on Raoul in LND. On the one hand, it's a slap in the face to have a character that was originally envisioned as a pure softboi with some irritable but mostly harmless quirks thanks to social niceties turned into such a horrible, selfish, nasty jerk. On the other hand, having him become so heavily flawed makes him more interesting and I find his dynamic with Erik fun. It seemed to me that Raoul had flown so far off the handle that Erik appeared put-together and rational by comparison.

Composing with her gone feels wrong, but it’s all that Erik knows how to do at this point.

The piano is nowhere near as powerful as an organ. It will do for now. It has to.

He plays and writes and plays again. It’s all meaningless, all of it. The single lamp in the room illuminates the expression of his grief splattered on the paper.

The last reverberations of the notes die away. Erik’s home is deathly quiet save for strained breathing from the open window. He sent the servants, such as they were, away for the night in anticipation of de Chagny’s arrival. 

Raoul climbed up to Erik’s apartment on the sixth floor, no small feat. The harsh panting complements the stink of sweat as he lurches through.

“The door would have been a less perilous route,” Erik says.

Isn’t he meant to be the one with the tendency for dramatics?

Raoul says nothing. 

Erik has the presence of mind to wonder where Gustave is. Not that he expected Raoul to take him along for the little endeavor, but he hopes that the child at least has someone looking after him as his father—is that still an appropriate descriptor?—goes to visit his… other father.

Erik stands from the piano as Raoul approaches him. “Have you come here to discuss Ch—”

Raoul’s fist connects squarely with his face. Erik’s blood is hot and slippery on his swollen lips. He takes a half-step backward.

“Don’t you dare,” Raoul snarls at him. “Don’t you dare say her name.” 

“Calm yourself,” Erik says, not missing the irony of him of all people commanding such a thing.

Raoul attacks him again. His anger makes him sloppy. Even so, Erik narrowly avoids a blow to the throat. He throws himself back and runs into the lamp beside the piano. He glances over his shoulder at it, then back at the advancing man. Crazed vengeance burns in Raoul’s eyes. 

Erik throws the lamp, the sole source of light, in front of him. He misses Raoul. Pity. 

A crash. Darkness soaks them. 

The sky is moonless tonight, Erik notes with a sickening lurch in his heart.

Raoul forces him to refocus. Even without a clear target he is determined to murder him. Only by a hair’s breadth does he manage to slip to the side, away from Raoul’s onslaught. On silent feet he hides clear on the other side of the room, half-tucked in the curtains.

There is a crunch as Raoul steps on the lamp, then a grunt and a discordant mess of notes. Erik’s teeth set. He ran into his piano. 

“If you damage my instrument, sir, there shall be hell to pay.” 

Heedless of his warning, there is a sound very much like a fist slamming into the keys. “Face me man to man.”

“Man to man?” Erik calls from the dark, projecting his voice so it seems at his adversary’s ear. “You think yourself equal to me?”

He has difficulty taunting with his usual level of smugness with his nose’s current state. Not broken—without the mask taking the force the blow it probably would have been—but smarting. The last time someone hit him in the face he was a boy. He swore not to let it happen ever again. For all those years he managed to keep that promise to his younger self. Yet another thing Raoul de Chagny ruined.

His eyes begin to adjust to the lack of light. Raoul’s silhouette is visible, moving about the room in a frenzy.

Erik creeps up behind him, reaches out with both hands for his neck—

At the last possible moment, Raoul turns. Erik’s wrists are crushed in a bruising grip. His lips part. 

Raoul smiles grimly, teeth catching the tiniest bit of light from the stars. Then with a roar he throws his weight into Erik. 

The wind is knocked out of him when he hits the floor, leaving him totally limp and vulnerable.

Raoul was always heavier than Erik thanks to the muscle of a military man. Now age and excessive indulgence in alcohol thickened his middle. In short, Erik’s own frail frame is crushed beneath him. He lays utterly at his rival’s mercy as Raoul beats his face in.

  
He hasn’t removed the mask, so half the time his fists hit upon it with a crack painful for both parties. Erik lets it come. This is it, surely, the divine punishment for letting his Christine meet such a ghastly end.

And then, a lapse in the violence. 

“Are you quite finished, Monsieur?” A bloody bubble of spittle at the corner of Erik’s mouth pops. 

In answer, Raoul’s fist slams into his face again. The bridge of the mask’s nose snaps.

Raoul leans down until they’re eye to eye, until Erik can feel his hot breath on his mouth.

“I could mutilate the other side of your horrid face. I could drag you back to Paris and string you up in front of everyone. I could burn your body down to dust. But none of it would matter. It won’t bring my wife back.” His voice breaks. “It won’t… Christine… oh, God… it should’ve been me… why wasn’t it me?”

He collapses on top of Erik, weeping. Erik lays still for a moment, unable to believe that Raoul is getting tears and snot on his shoulder, that Raoul has his fingers curled around his lapel like a child seeking comfort.

“Stop that.” He shakes him, to no avail. “Stop that at once. Raoul…”

The forename is awkward on his tongue. 

So deep is the other man’s agony that he finds his own throat closing up in sympathy. The sensation of tears gathering in his eyes is familiar but no less agonizing.

After no small effort, Erik levers Raoul off and gets to his feet. He stares down at his foe for a long moment. 

“I’m going to light a candle,” he announces.

Raoul heaves a sigh but doesn’t move from where he leaves him. Erik takes the time to mop up the worst of the blood from his face and retrieve a new mask before illuminating the room. The bruises on the left side of his face are undoubtedly matching colors with the scars on the right.

He turns to find Raoul has recovered enough to drag himself to the couch. He’s examining where he injured his knuckles on the edge of Erik’s mask.

“I doubt my tea will appeal to your tastes, _la vicomte_ , but I think we could both use some.” 

Turmeric will help with the pain, so he chooses that. The process of boiling the water seems to take longer than it ever has before. 

Once it’s finished, Erik hands a cup to Raoul then sits down on the piano bench again. Raoul scowls down at his teacup. Erik begins to question the wisdom in handing him scalding hot liquid. 


End file.
